


The Haunting Presence

by SophieGraceJ



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: AU, Angels, Antichrist, Blood and Violence, F/F, F/M, Fallen Angels, Forbidden Love, Magic, Other, Witches, satanic cult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-01 04:18:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16757791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieGraceJ/pseuds/SophieGraceJ
Summary: Blue eyes noticed her little, vulnerable form. Noticed her eyes watchful but stealthy. He noticed her in the corner, and she could feel him … Him.Reaching out to her, in her head. She could feel something dark and malice inside her, searching with the hands of excitement and boredom. Flicking through her memories, her life and how she felt about the novel she can’t even remember the name of. He was within her. And somehow, it wasn’t hard for her to believe he truly was inside her head, listening to her thoughts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mallory had always felt a presence within her, something she didn't understand. But never had she felt anything as eerie and alluring as Michael Langdon, a haunting presence at the boarding school she always knew had a dark secret. 
> 
> Missing students, dreams of sacrifice and bloody hearts being pulled from dead bodies.
> 
> So many questions, yet so little answers. Maybe her only salvation is the thing buried inside her, and the thing buried inside Langdon.

“Why the fuck are you up? It’s so late, Jesus Mallory,”

“Sorry Coco, just hang on-”

“No, you hang on. I was sleeping, I was motherfucking sleeping …” 

“Won’t happen again, I promise,” Mallory whispered, stumbling over all the designer clothes sprawled out on the floor of their shared room. She watched, trembling as Coco rolled her eyes, collapsing back into her pink pillows and seemingly falling asleep again. 

Damn it. 

Pressing a shaking hand to her forehead, she wiped away the sweat, pulled off her pyjama shirt and slid into her single bed that sat in the far corner, furthest away from their window, where the breeze was. She didn’t mind too much … 

It wasn’t the temperature that kept sleep from her, it was the dreams, no, the nightmares that continued to haunt her on these warm nights. Ever since she was sent to this boarding school, sleep never came easy. Homesickness, missing home and her parents. The familiarity of never belonging, never staying in one place for too long was painful, sad and it never sat well, but being alone in this strange place, it only left her loneliness vulnerable. Then he arrived … 

Mr Langdon. The owner of this school. There was something eerie about him, and with him, he brought an aura of similar eeriness. A scent of something that played with her head, left her drowsy and in a numb-state of mind in the morning. Dreams of violence, trauma and screams. Didn’t help the curfew was so early, she couldn’t leave the room, not even to get fresh air, not even to pee…

She was being tortured, like her soul was being manipulated and played with by this presence of something dark, something terrifying. The principle didn’t make anyone feel better either, Ms Venable was far from the nurturing hand Mallory wished to run to. She missed home. 

Comfort, warmth, love, compassion. 

Mallory lay in her bed, eyes wide awake till the sun’s light poured in through the glass, seeping into her sheets and skin beneath that softness. It was a different light however, not as sweet as she remembered back home. It was colder, distant. 

No one else seemed to care. Definitely not Coco at least, her roommate for the year. Everyone seemed to be taken with the rebellious nature of this type of education, the wealthy and the in-between partying, well, never after the curfew. Still; sex, drugs, alcohol, fights and sneaking around was popular, Mallory wasn’t apart of it though, no one really saw her. She didn’t mind that either, preferring the lack of attention from Ms Venable and of course … Langdon. His eyes, although stunning, striking were too cold for her skin and lucky for her, she was too boring for those very eyes. Those blue eyes were interested in the others, like Gallant and Emily. Langdon had taken it upon himself to get to know the students at “his” school. 

Just not her. And she wanted to keep it that way. 

Classes were mediocre, free periods were as well. Not much to do but walk the old buildings overwhelming the vast green, hidden by large masses of tall trees worthy of a god’s home. Walking the halls alone and silently, sensing the life dancing within the school, buzzing by her ears and all over her body.  
It was almost too much for her to function with. She had always felt it, this strange feeling of energy surrounding her insignificant form, but here, in this eerie new world, it was stronger and more pronounced. 

And there was another scent, another buzz of energy, a more disturbed one. Leaving her spine in shivers and skin with goosepimples even in the sweltering heat. 

People went “missing” too. Stu for example, he was in nearly all her classes then suddenly just disappeared. Andre was more sombre than usual. Mallory asked around, from some of her teachers to some students, and she had only received a “he returned to his old school in his hometown”, and it didn’t just stop with Stu. 

The dreams of sacrifice, blood and serpents only left her more paranoid. Hearing and seeing things that she hoped weren’t there. No one else seemed to sense it but her…

What’s wrong with me? 

She wasn’t normal, she didn’t belong. And it was as if the school was trying her to prove it to her. She just couldn’t be certain if it was her sanity on the brink of destruction, or reality sharing the truth to her and her only. 

Then it happened. 

In the library, Mallory rested in a lesser used corner within the grand scale of bookshelves, desks and computers. She sat quietly, reading an assignment over, something about a novel she read. This place was doing a number on her mind, she could barely remember if she ever existed anywhere but this damn school. 

Langdon was there too, with a student. Sitting close, whispering in one another’s ear, Mallory tried to ignore it. The assignment wasn’t exciting enough to distract however and she found herself glancing back and forth between them and her papers. 

Blue eyes noticed her little, vulnerable form. Noticed her eyes watchful but stealthy. He noticed her in the corner, and she could feel him … Him. 

Reaching out to her, in her head. She could feel something dark and malice inside her, searching with the hands of excitement and boredom. Flicking through her memories, her life and how she felt about the novel she can’t even remember the name of. He was within her. And somehow, it wasn’t hard for her to believe he truly was inside her head, listening to her thoughts. 

Blue eyes widened, the lights in the library flickered then blew one by one. The only source of sight being late afternoon sun flooding through the large window of clean, sharp glass. 

Mallory stood, the other student freaked and ran out, Langdon sat still as a statue, watching her with a look of supressed shock. 

The urge to reach out to him was tempting and she wasn’t strong enough to resist. A third eye within her opening and prying into his head like an iron bar breaking into a treasure chest, a chest filled with not gold, but bloodied secrets and horrors she wished she didn’t find but cherished anyway. 

Then it was shut. The lock clicked, and the glittering of gold dispersed. Only a shared look of shock and awe was between the two of them and she ran because of it. Afraid of what they were both seeing. 

And regretting that she had just grasped the attention of Michael Langdon … The son of Satan.


	2. Chapter 2

She hadn’t seen him after that, and was glad for it. But it didn’t lift the weight of being watched constantly, even in the privacy of her own room, not in the gardens where light and happiness seemed to actually exist, not anywhere did she feel completely alone. 

Sleep was getting worse by each night. Her day to day life was getting worse too. It was hot all the time, while everyone else wore sweaters and jeans, Mallory was in summer dresses and slipping into bed barely clothed. Coco almost convinced her she was a dog going into heat, complaining about the fan being on flat out, and window being wide open every night. 

“What’s your deal? It’s literally ten degrees, how are you not hyperventilating?” 

She could never concentrate in class anymore; the heat and paranoia biting at her skin and mind like a viper, a snake hiding within the crowded halls. More people were “leaving” but Mallory deeply doubted that was the case, and found herself suspicious of nearly all who worked at the school, suddenly noticing things she hadn’t before. 

The curfew, the dreams, the disappearing students. The paranoia. And, of course Langdon. She had almost forgotten that day, almost convinced herself it was a bad dream and she hadn’t been inside his head. Didn’t see a fallen angel and his son … Michael. 

A boy with a malevolent seed planted deep in his soul, no light, just darkness. 

Mallory never believed in pure evil or good however, never believed in just black and white. She never believed in heaven and hell, a singular God and Devil. She never really gave much time to religion and spirituality, not consciously that is. Sure, she was spiritual but not in any ritualistic way. 

That all fell flat on it’s face though, whether or not Satan was truly the deity of all things evil, he was real and Michael was connected to him through not just blood, but spirit. It was all beginning to make sense. 

But why was no one else noticing? Why was she the only one?

She wasn’t even tempted to tell Coco, the person closest to being an actual friend of hers. Coco would never understand, not that Mallory blamed her. She would just have to try and keep it to herself, stay out of trouble and hopefully never have an interaction like that again. No more sudden telepathy with the son of the devil and owner of this school … 

Another thing that fell flat on its face. 

While studying in the library, a teacher she didn’t know the name of announced that Mr Langdon would like to see her in his office, to see how she was progressing and such…

She’s had anxiety attacks before, but never this intense and infused in her heart. The idea of even looking at him again terrified her beyond any childish fear. 

Standing outside of his private office on the far side of the school was awakening an irrational fear inside her, causing her to go red. A hot temperature and anxiety never went well together. It would be a miracle if she didn’t pass out in front of him.

Whatever happened though, she would have to ask him to somehow stop the heat, ask his father in the underworld to get an aircon or something. It was driving her insane. More insane than she was already. 

“Mallory, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” feminine pink lips smiled, soft skin pulling in the perfect directions, tugging at the perfect structure of his face. He was certainly beautiful, long hair silk smooth and strawberry blonde. 

Mallory smiled too quick for his notice as she scurried from the entrance to a leather seat just before his perfectly organised desk, papers in neat piles or in folders. A laptop as clean and new as the day it was bought probably. 

Lithe fingers traversed a folder, blue eyes flickering over the words, face calm and indifferent, completely opposite to her frightened doe eyes and parted lips. Waiting for him to bring up their first “meeting” was the first challenge, and apparently one that wasted her fears and worries. 

“Reading the reports from your teachers, it’s safe to say you’re doing well here. Behaviour is impeccable, always courteous and polite, punctual too,” he smiled, lifting his cold eyes from the folder, shocking her with their pure colour, “Your work has been consistent and rather good, assignments always handed in on time … I imagine you study a lot?” 

Flattery wasn’t something Mallory was expecting to come out of his mouth, but she was relieved for it, for a moment believing that maybe she had dreamt what happened. 

“Thanks ... I guess I do study quite a bit, maybe too much.” 

He reclined into his chair, a satisfied smile on his face, eyes humoured by her in some way. “Well, it’s paying off nicely for you. That’s not really why I asked you here however,” he said with a feverish look in his eyes, clasping his hands together like a proper businessman would, “I asked you here because I’m curious of you Mallory.”

Mallory could have burst into flames, internally she was all over the place, a mess, broken pieces of a functioning human trying to fix itself all the while the exterior of her was inventing a façade right before his eyes. She bet he sensed it though, judging by the amusement dancing by his eyes, something sadistic, he enjoyed knowing that deep down, she was falling apart.

“Curious?” She choked, hands paralysed in her lap so she wouldn’t openly fidget under such a haunting stare. 

“You see … I have a sort of night-vision vision to the soul, I can see into the dark places that people desperately try to keep hidden.” 

“I don’t have any dark places.” 

“Really?” He breathed, leaning forward, over the desk, hand supporting his jaw as he studied her closely with the look of a mystified child, looking at a creature they’d never seen before. 

“Look, I don’t know if this has anything to do with what happened in the library … I have no idea what happened, I’m just as confused,” She blurted out before she could stop herself, eyes watery but hopeful that her glasses would distort it as just a glittering of candles reflecting in the glass. 

He remained silent for a moment, just watching her with a look of genuine interest. “What did happen in the library?” his voice like a heavy whisper, a form of music to her ears. He was playing with her head. 

“You were in my head … I felt you, and something inside me did the same to you… I-I think I want to leave now.”

“You’re afraid aren’t you, of accepting who you are,” He stopped her from getting away, long arm launching out to grasp her wrist, not roughly, but enough to grasp her attention as well. To anchor her back to the chair. 

She shook her head, unsure of what was happening. The desire, the power being opened within her. 

“I don’t know who I am.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, purred. The sight of his parted lips distracting her from his pale eyes. 

He was like a needle, withdrawing her deepest, unconscious thoughts and perhaps memories. The strange feeling of never belonging, the dreams, the energy. “Sometimes … I feel like there’s someone inside me. Someone trying to claw their way out …” she whispered back to him, a secret between the two of them, a heavy weight lifted off her chest at the  
release of such painful feelings she never told anyone.

“Who?” 

“I don’t know, I just want to go,” she said, tears trekking down her face. Slipping her arm from his grip, his gentle fingers kissing her skin goodbye as she stood from the chair, he followed however, stalked her to the exit. She thought she’d make it in time but another vice-like grip reached her, still gentle but there and knowingly strong.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, free hand hanging loosely from the door knob as the other fell numb by her side in his grip. 

“I want to help you, Mallory,” 

“I don’t understand …” she questioned, afraid and wanting to get out before she did something like last time and possibly hurt him or herself, she could feel whatever it was bubbling within her, ready to erupt, “Why? Why would you want to help me?”

He looked down at her with a new serenity before his blue eyes, not like the sadistic enjoyment or the predatory gaze she had grown to know over a few minutes. “Because I know what it feels like to not know who or what you are, or what your purpose is.” 

Mallory softened then, hand leaving the handle of the door, lips pressing together to prevent a sigh of relief after hearing someone say that out loud, to admit what she had always felt since she was a young girl overwhelmed with so much and understanding so little. 

He let go of her arm too, sensing she wasn’t going to run away, or do anything reckless out of fear. “What’s wrong with us? What are we?” she asked, wiping fingers beneath her glasses to catch the tears, he smiled however, a smile of ego and narcissism but also a smile of hope, of perhaps diminishing the loneliness and anger she could feel burning inside him.

“We’re gods.”


	3. Chapter 3

Gods. She knew he spoke figuratively, although maybe a little too egotistical, still, she knew he didn’t mean it literally. She wasn’t a god, and from what she saw in the library, he wasn’t either. 

At least she got a partial answer to the mystery clouding what she was. No longer did she feel utterly lost and insane. But it had also opened a can of worms for her, spending most of her free time googling and researching witches, demons, angels and people with superpowers. There really wasn’t anything but fiction to read. So, she was at a lost there. 

Sleep remained difficult; the heat existed still but she was beginning to grow used to being the outcast wearing a dress in the cold, stale autumn. She could walk the halls knowing there was a logical reason behind all the things she had been experiencing, in fact, she had almost forgotten the dreams of massacre and blood rituals, the missing students and whispers at night warning her of the truth. 

“We already know you’re telepathic, seeing you were inside my head,” he began, sitting so effortlessly with his black clothes and long legs, tanned skin and silky hair. Maybe he was a god? “There’s much more however, I sense it in you.” 

Mallory blanked a little, unsure of what to say or what to do. They were in privacy of course, but she still felt stupid in a way. In her cheaper clothing, scraggly hair hanging by her shoulders and shorter legs. She felt inferior to him and he definitely liked that. 

“Well … what can you do? Like what are your powers? Have you got like crazy dark phoenix shit going on or …” she faltered in her rambling, noticing the way he seemed unimpressed, blue eyes just settling on her as if he wished she would just be quiet.

“Think bigger than some bullshit fantasy, think real power, the power of the universe, and its elements. Good and evil are real, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself they’re not. Think the ability to implode someone’s fucking head with just a thought, not the darker side of a comic book character.” 

“I don’t know if I could do that-”

“-you can do whatever you want Mallory, if you have the will. Here, give me your hand,” he demanded more than asked, palm up and waiting for her to deliver. 

And she did, after a minute of hesitation. 

Warm touching cold, light touching darkness … There was a spark of something, and she smiled widely, laughing at the sensation of an explosion between their hands, like something had detonated by their casual interaction. 

He smiled too, a smile of pure mischief. It had Mallory second-guessing what was happening until it did in fact happen … Her sight was blurry, and before long she was forced to pull her glasses off. 

She could see perfectly. Everything so pristine, not a mark of imperfection in the office of candlelight and sensual wood. “What did you do?” 

“I wanted to see them. They remind me of a fawns’ eyes, innocent and naïve,” he said, his tongue giving off a lilt of something Mallory didn’t quite hear clearly, “now, I want you to move those glasses with your mind.” 

Mallory didn’t respond straight away. Everything had happened so quickly she hadn’t even properly processed she didn’t need glasses anymore, or the fact that he believed she would be able to accomplish telekinesis. 

“I’m sorry?”

“Move the glasses to the bookshelf over there with your mind.” 

Mallory wasn’t really expecting him to elaborate, but even a hint would have been appreciated. Telekinesis … couldn’t be that hard could it? If she could read his mind, she could probably move something with just a thought. 

She exhaled in a way that could look like forming a strong focus in her head, nothing could distract her, not even his painfully blue gaze watching her every move, every tick in her face. 

Placing the black framed glasses in her lap, she shut her eyes and imagined a power inside her, an energy that could reach out from within her and to anything outside of it. A pulsing in her chest kindled a confidence, evoked her to flick her tongue out and smile … there was something. Something there that she couldn’t see. 

His energy was a beacon … there was darkness that stood out even amongst the nothingness behind her eyes, a cold that she wanted to reach out and touch, she tried but he recoiled from her … 

No, she was forgetting about the point of all this, to move the glasses. The glasses in her lap. She conjured hands inside her head, hands that would grasp the old pair she had owned since her sixteenth birthday, the hands were palpable enough to lift them, and pass them on to large bookshelf not too far away from where they sat. 

Michael’s laugh was enough to open her eyes and she couldn’t help but join him. 

She had just enough time to witness the glasses hovering mid-air, halfway to the shelf only to fall to the wooden floor with a sharp clatter. 

“Oh my god … that wasn’t you was it?”

“No, no, that was all you,” he smiled, for the first time with his teeth, eyes smiling with his mouth. Mallory gasped, giggling like a child.

“I just did that … I can’t believe it, I have telekinesis!” She jumped from the chair and went to reach out for him, hands on his shoulders, shaking him like she would to a close friend. It wasn’t as awkward as she had first anticipated, he didn’t feel strange beneath her hands, his blouse was soft and cool on her skin, an expensive material. 

“You’ll be capable of much more with practise, watch,” he said, standing from his chair - towering over her for a split second – and lingering the palm of his hand on a singular candle, its flame dancing like normal, only to become brighter, more intense and distinct in the way it twirled and swayed from side to side. Mallory watched entranced as he controlled its movements so smoothly and sharply, like a puppeteer. 

Whispers, songs of something she recognised in dreams chanted by her ears as she stared at the flame under his hand. Words she didn’t understand but felt deeply inside herself, an energy hot and bubbling eroding her very exterior, clawing its way out and reaching for the flame desperate for more warmth, for more light. 

A scream erupted from the candle and Langdon fell to the floor, Mallory was pulled from the trance from the thud and heaviness of his breathing. She looked down to his clueless eyes, tangled hair and flared nose. 

He was afraid …

The air was thick and the room was suddenly much colder, different to the scorching heat. Mallory sensed his fear like she sensed the heat of the sun when outside. 

“What was that?” A husky breath, an agape mouth and pale skin, Michael stared up at her like she had become a stranger again. 

“I don’t know …” Mallory answered, taking a hint and quickly leaving his office like a ghost, not once looking back. Spirit confused and wandering down the halls, straight to the garden where she could sit and forget that she lost control again. 

What scared her most wasn’t the loss of control however, it was that in that small flickering flame, she saw the death and destruction Langdon could cause and had already incited.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thank you for those who have been leaving kudos, I really appreciate it and I really hope all who have been reading this have been enjoying it!  
> To be honest, I actually don't even know what I'm writing, I'm just writing haha  
> Anyways, here is chapter 4!! A bit angsty and really kind of a mess, oh well! XD  
> Don't hesitate to leave a comment! I'd love to read feedback from everyone!

“What was that?”

“Who are you?”

“What’re you afraid of?” 

“There’s something wrong with our daughter …”

“She needs help.”

“I can help you Mallory.” 

“What are we?”

“We’re Gods.”

Mallory would shoot up from cloud-like pillows every morning, unsure of where she was, lost and confused, only to find that she was in her room like always. A single peeling bookshelf stuck to her bed like a magnet with textbooks and a few novels she read for fun, and her desk that had barely anything on it, besides the laptop and some papers she had been writing for some classes that weren’t special enough to remember. 

She was losing the plot again. 

She hadn’t talked to Michael in weeks since that evening in his office … She had managed to fuck that up too. She had only spoke with him that one time and somehow missed his presence, she missed the idea of having someone who was experiencing the same thing in a way, someone who understood her and someone she could understand back.

No, it was a fleeting memory. A fantasy, of having superpowers and being the only person to know who this Michael Langdon was. It was all just a false dream and nightmare. 

There was no devil, and the devil had no son. 

The world wasn’t going to end and she was going to be fine. She would just ignore the visions each night of a world reborn of fire and ash, a forest filled with bones and hearts bloody and fresh being held in the hand of pure evil. 

She’d ignore the scorching heat each night as she slept with soft blankets upon the floor and hardly any clothes covering her sweating body. 

She’d ignore the urge to reach out to everything around her, to close her eyes and feel what she felt in that very office, to ignore the energy flocking to and from her chest and hands. 

She’d ignore the sense of never truly being alone, feeling the eyes of all living things on her, every choice, every action she made being judged by something she didn’t see or understand. 

She spent most of her time in the school gardens, no one else ever used the place, it was always empty, as if it were made specifically for her. She’d sit by the garden of flowers and plants like a little nymph, chewing on an apple … one of her favourite foods. Blue butterflies would pass and go, she’d smile and soak in the sun and cool breeze. And the breeze truly was cool, reasoning with her that it was no longer summer, yet she still felt the heat of it. 

It was heaven … the only heaven she would ever see and feel. 

Like a home away from home, feet in the grass and hair down like a hippie. Coco and Gallant had teased her about it, calling her a tree hugger one day and then a stoner the next, yet she wasn’t the one that smoked weed instead of studying for exams. Not that Mallory was much of a studier anymore, too busy trying to forget and at the same time remember. 

On a day free of classes, she would sit by this one tree that’s canopy was enough to gift her some shade from the determined sun. She’d sit under it and just think, think about her parents, her old home, everything she had never really pondered over as a child, things she thought about too much and of course she thought about Langdon … Michael. 

There really wasn’t a time she wasn’t thinking about him for some reason. Those piercing eyes and that long rose-gold hair. 

How could someone so beautiful, so honest be so dark and mysterious? 

She’d never seen anyone like him before. And she had a feeling she never would again, and it saddened her. 

“Mallory … What a pleasant surprise.” 

She jumped a little where she sat, jolted her eyes right up to his face, a halo of sunlight surrounding his pretty head. 

Speak, or well think of the devil and he shall appear. 

“Mr Langdon, hi,” she said brokenly and pathetically, as if she were caught doing something wrong, “what are you doing here?” 

He smiled down at her, sharp eyes squinting in a strange delight, sneaky and knowing, it scared her a little, “just taking a walk. It’s a lovely day don’t you think?” he answered, taking a seat on a white chair not so far from the tree, it was atop the dirtied pavements alongside the rose bushes. 

There was silence, he just stared down at where she sat in a white dress Coco had given to her, not really out of kindness but because she didn’t like it. Thought it was scrappy and poorly designed, fitted Mallory’s personality apparently. It made Mallory smile for some weird reason. 

“Look, about the candle thing … it was an accident … I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

His face stern for a moment before contorting into something she never thought she’d see on him, a look of a genuine friendliness, a smooth chuckle fell from his lips, “I can assure you no harm was done. Mostly just some questions that I had to find answers to.” 

“What kind of questions?” 

“Classified …” he said simply, head tilting to the side, legs crossing so seamlessly she hadn’t noticed till his ring adorned fingers were playing atop his left knee.

Mallory cleared her throat, fingers copying his movements, instead playing with her white dress. “You know … I need to ask you some stuff. I have a lot of questions too.” 

She waited for him to object, but he showed no sign. Just open eyes and open ears.

“Twice now … I’ve seen things about you that kind of scare me …” 

He bit his lip, leaning forward, “what kinds of things?” 

She breathed deeply, unsure of where to look, his lips were so enticing in a way she never knew possible. 

“Death … Sacrifice … The world ending. The devil-”

“-you think I’m the devil?” he laughed, right hand propping his face up, watching down at her with a look of satisfaction.

“No, no … I don’t think that … but, you’re connected to him in some way … Satan, is he real?” 

He wouldn’t stop staring, but it didn’t make her skin crawl, it made her feel alive. 

“Tell me something Mallory … do you believe in God?” 

“I don’t know … do you?” 

He smiled widely.

“Meet me here midnight, don’t be late.” 

~

Mallory had sulked in her room the rest of the day over the fact that he hadn’t just told her the truth then and there in the privacy of that garden, it seemed he liked to make things complicated, found the drama of it entertaining perhaps. 

She bet he knew she was sitting on her bed, distressed and barely keeping herself from begging the clock to strike twelve. Like Cinderella, waiting for the spell to be undone. 

From rags to riches, and then back to rags again. Mallory knew though that it would be neither, that there was something much more than the material and physical. 

Alarm of chimes. Time to go.

With curfew and all, her nerves were fireworks on the 4th of July. Never calm or quiet. On that line between missing the vibrancy of explosions in the sky and that expectation for it to occur, the tension of waiting for the brightness and loudness of its abrupt existence.

She walked with precision and care, through the hallways like a fae … Only stopping once, witnessing a scene she had never thought could somehow make its way to reality. 

Coco giggling like a naughty teenager, sneaking away from Ms Venable’s room … Everyone had a secret it seemed, even her shallow but endearing roommate Coco and the vindictive and bitter principle of the school she had wanted to leave since arriving. 

Not anymore. Michael had done that. She didn’t want to leave until she knew all there was to know about him. In fact, she wanted to know him more than she wanted to know herself.

He was sitting in that pretty little chair she would sit in sometimes. Legs crossed in a lazy way only he could make sensual and forbidden. Delicate fingers brushing strands of his hair. 

“Mr Langdon … I’m here.” 

“And so you are Mallory. Just on time too,” he said pleasantly, standing from the chair and turning to face her in such a way her eyes couldn’t help but rake over his figure. He noticed but didn’t dwell, to Mallory’s fortune. 

“Here, take my hand.”

What was with him and demanding her to take his hand? 

She obliged anyway, smiling at the touch of such beautiful skin, so gentle and angelic in the way they moved, in the way they felt on hers. 

Mallory stood with her hand resting in his, doe eyes waiting for something to happen like last time, something magical, impossible until he made it not so distant from the possible. 

Michael didn’t let his eyes leave the sight of her hand in his, not once as he breathed deeply, brushing the fingers of his free hand over the top of her captured one. “You really have no clue …” he whispered, peering up and up until blue met hazel, light met dark. 

“What do you mean?” 

He didn’t answer with words she could actually take in and analyze, instead, he responded with a spell, words so graceful and fluid she barely heard them at all, but she felt them. 

A gasp, and everything changed. He changed … His exterior falling to the ground, flaking off to reveal his true self. 

Black wings, black eyes, greying skin, and death the perfume he now wore…. 

She should have been terrified, felt trapped, but she didn’t. She kept her hand in his lifeless one, his freezing touch. 

And in the darkness of his eyes, she could grasp the reflection of herself in them … no, it couldn’t be her. 

A glittering light radiating from her skin, bright albeit pale … the scent of spring and joy … white wings like a doves and eyes with no color, just white. 

The world was not as it seemed … neither was she or him. 

“Ave Satanas-”

Mallory let go, a pain so malice and poisonous racing through her veins like a wildfire, she fell back to the ground, where she belonged. A choir of screams echoing inside her skull, yelling for her to run. 

Michael, returned to his false self, looked down at her with disappointment and she didn’t understand …

“It is you … Father was right … they sent you.” 

Mallory’s tears tasted of copper, of something metal … touching the tip of a finger to her lips, she witnessed the redness, the thickness of blood falling from her eyes. 

“I should kill you …” Within seconds, Mallory was lifted from the ground, his perverted hand at her neck but not tightly, not painfully so … just there and guiding her body, blue eyes angry and lost.

“Let me go.” Mallory choked, blood spitting from her mouth, it wasn’t his hand stealing the air from her, it was a deep sadness … the sudden flood of remembrance that she could feel but not see, the memories she knew were there but couldn’t place. 

His eyes narrowed, showing no sign of answering her prayers, no sign of letting go. No sign that he wasn’t going to just add that bit of pressure and strangle the life from her. She knew he would be capable of it. 

“I should send you back to where you belong, up there with your creator …” 

An abrupt rage, an anger she had never experienced before erupted within her soul. It couldn’t have evolved from her … she had never felt this much fury.

“I said let me go!” 

There was no magic. No power. Nothing but her voice … just her voice, just plain Mallory’s voice. Not holy fire and the wings of an angel, just her. And somehow it was enough to push him away.

His eyes shocked, as if he hadn’t known what he was doing. Hand falling from the vulnerableness of her neck, he backed away. Lights began turning on inside the school, she had awoken them … The commotion outside would be enough to awaken even the deepest sleeper, and Mallory knew it was time to go. 

A sob, a last glance and she sprinted from him, from the school and further away from everything. She didn’t care where she went, she just had to get away. 

She was alone and wandering in a world she didn’t belong to… that’s how she always felt, how her parents felt … 

Run. Just run. Into the forest of trees, leaves of gold and yellow, some branches naked and bare … Scared and withering in the coldness, the emptiness. 

Soon she was on her knees, in her white dress stained with blood and soil. The moons light seeping in through the gaps in the canopies above her, allowing her sight of the clearing she managed to find herself in.

A wounded animal, separated from the herd she was never wanted in. 

“I don’t understand… I don’t understand-” she chanted over and over, wiping at her blood-stained face that made its way into her hair as well. She was terrified, yet too focused on cleaning away the grime to notice her body shaking and the smell of something rotting. 

Rotting. Death and decay. After a while of unsuccessful praying and weeping, she became more and more aware of the stench and the recognition of something draining energy out of her, something dark and powerful… ancient. 

Whispers woven in the trees, prayers not to God but something uglier, something beneath the earth, something she was allergic to, something dangerous to her. 

But she couldn’t leave, couldn’t or perhaps didn’t want to. 

The main anchor of this presence was coming from a single spot in the ground, not far from where she sat helpless and defeated. 

Leave. Don’t go near it. Stay away. Don’t do it. 

She ignored the warnings and crawled towards the source of this darkness … she had dreamt of this place … this forest … dreams of sacrifice and murder. 

Screaming and horror. 

She had seen so much already, how could she not just believe already? Why was it so hard for her to believe?

Sinking her fingers into the rough material of nature, she began to dig, pulling away weeds and dirt. Manic and crazed to find what it was that stunk like the corpse of something, its energy decaying and stolen away by something vicious. 

This hidden desire in her was animalistic yet civilised, humane in the way it felt light and natural to her. To mend this break in nature, to stop this rotten from spreading.  
Falling away from it, gasping for air from the exertion, she realised what a mistake it had been … 

A girl … 

Skin lost of any colour and so fragile it was peeling away like bark from a tree. Naked and covered in insects feasting on her, putrid and dead. And the wound in her stomach, her insides escaping through the gaping hole perfectly sculpted into her soft flesh, sprawled across her abdomen. 

Mallory released a raspy cry deep from within her throat, sobbing relentlessly into her dirtied hands. 

She remained there, just like that for an eternity, until a thought crossed her mind … 

Her dreams, they were all true. 

Evil was real, and it was here. The people going missing … gifts to this haunting presence … gifts to him … Michael. 

And she had thought to be like him, to feel her soul in his, felt comfort from thinking of him. Now there was a sickness humming by the image of his beautiful face. A monster.

He was a monster.

Mallory walked numb and emotionally paralyzed back to her room, uncaring to the threat of being seen out after the curfew, punishment being who knows what. No one saw her though, as if they had all forgotten her cry at midnight … They didn’t care, they were unaware to the horrors. 

She walked the halls like a ghost, haunting the school quietly and unnoticed, just like Langdon. 

Locking herself in the girl’s bathroom, she stood under the shower head and blacked out everything else, allowing herself to be cleansed by the cold, stale water. 

In a trance, she fell into her bed but never closed her eyes … Coco wandered in a drunken mess early morning, not even glancing at Mallory. 

In all truth Mallory hadn’t noticed much of Coco either, too busy thinking about the girl she found in the forest. 

“I should send you back to where you belong, up there with your creator …” 

She should send him back to where he belongs, down there with his creator.

But she knew she didn't have it in her. She wasn't like him, no matter what she was, she wasn't evil.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!  
> Again I'm just spewing out words, but I'm finally getting to an actual storyline for this fanfic, trust me! I've kind of got it sorted! XD

“Mallory … You’re bleeding-”

Coco sat by her side on the bed, freshly painted nails still evoking the scent of fakeness but the look in those brown eyes weren’t false. Coco grasped Mallory’s hand in hers, wiping the blood clean with a sheet of paper towel …

Blood … Mallory must have missed it last night; the shower water hadn’t got to it. It was dry and flaking off like just the red nail polish on Coco’s fingertips. 

“Jesus, what happened to you …” Coco whispered, studying Mallory’s face with an expression that had never blessed her pretty face before, at least not in Mallory’s presence. 

For a second, Mallory thought she might break down in tears and release everything to Coco, to sob out all that she had seen, everything that had been happening. Herself, Michael and the dead girl in the forest. But she didn’t. 

“I’m okay … I promise, just haven’t been sleeping well, that’s all.” Mallory did her best to smile, Coco stared for what felt to be an eternity, as if she really cared … and just as eternal, she broke this care, pulled the mask of indifference over her face and all was lost. 

“…You look like it. Your dark circles make you look like a raccoon, definitely need sleep,” she said plainly and blunt, almost jumping away from Mallory as if she were the plague, “anyways, I gotta get ready for the masquerade tonight …” 

“Masquerade?” 

Mallory hadn’t heard anything about a masquerade, no one had mentioned it to her all week … then again, she’s been busy. The thought drifted her into a painful trance, but it was soon fractured by Coco heaving an irritated sigh.

“Bitch, do you live under a rock? The masquerade ball, for Halloween … I literally told you about it last week-”

“Halloween is still a few weeks away, why would the school be throwing a party now?” Mallory questioned, not to Coco specifically, more to herself. It didn’t make any sense. 

“I don’t know actually … that’s a good point. You know that weird guy Michael or whatever, the guy who owns the school,” Mallory nodded, yet almost couldn’t bare the sound, the syllables of his name being spoken aloud, “well, he’s the one who announced it,  
something about wanting to celebrate how far the school has come or some shit.”

Mallory shivered. She knew it couldn’t be just because of that, he was doing it for a more selfish reason, he was the son of the devil after all, clever and cunning like a fox shrouded in darkness. Placing a veil of celebration and dedication over a body of evil doings and horrific actions. 

“I don’t think I’ll go … I need sleep, like you said, my dark circles are pretty bad,” Mallory attempted to distract herself with a stupid joke, but it seemed the universe wasn’t taking that as an answer. 

“Shit out of luck Mallory, attendance is mandatory.” Coco remarked with an amused smirk, brushing past her and out the door, leaving Mallory to swallow the truth like a pill covered in shattered glass and needles. 

~

Mandatory. Of course, how could Mallory have ever thought otherwise, how could she ever think she could get out of seeing Michael … he always seemed to find a way to claw his way into her head, whether that be physical or in her unconsciousness at night in bed. 

A fallen angel, beautiful but so ugly in the way he smiled with such knowing and delight in what he did, and how it was all so awfully wrong. So wrong, he was evil, he had to be. 

Mallory was never one for big parties and crowds, but it seemed even Ms Venable was desperate to make it grandiose just like her and her walking stick that broke the silence of the school. Dress code was formal, so Mallory scavenged through the clothes she brought with her, made up of mostly scrappy sun dresses and some jeans and shirts. She was lacking in the formal department, but she managed to dig out a dress she used to wear on Christmas day … She used to love Christmas. 

Something about it made her feel alive and welcomed, reborn into cold but comforting nature. Snow crisp and freezing, but it held a warmth for some reason. 

The dress brought back those fond memories of hot chocolate and sitting by the fireplace with her family before she knew any better. 

A soft and expensive material, something Michael would wear she couldn’t help but think darkly. It was loose and long, reached her ankles, she could borrow a belt from Coco to proportion it a bit better to her body, still it was the best thing she had. 

Coco had dragged Gallant into their room to do her hair all prim and proper, gossiping never ended with those two and they talked shit most of the time. Mallory stuck to herself, brushing her sandy hair so it didn’t look as messy as it usually did. 

“What are you, a freaking church mouse?” Gallant laughed as he glanced between her and Coco whom seemed to find it even funnier than he did. 

Mallory remained quiet, not wanting to fuel the flames. 

“Leave her alone, it’s not like she owns anything better … Besides, church mice are kinda cute.” Coco said, eyes peering into her vanity like she had fallen in love with her own reflection, Mallory couldn’t help but smile though … Coco had called her cute in her own twisted way. 

Black ankle boots, a black belt and a touch of mascara was all she could be bothered to add to her appearance, and she began to doubt whether she would be allowed into the theatre that was to be the venue of the masquerade ball. 

She knew her attire was underwhelming compared to Coco and Gallant, in fact to everyone else she began to realize as she walked to the entrance of the grand celebration. 

Glittering dresses and suits, dark in color, seductive and of another realm. Mallory was afraid there was an actual detailed dress code she had completely fucked up, but no. She was allowed into the hall, lace mask on and heart beating like the Halloween music that echoed throughout the theatre. 

So loud and overpowering, she could feel everyone’s heart racing in her own body. She could feel their energy, ready to burst and expire into thin air. The excitement, the desire, the joy and adrenaline rushing in their veins, their blood vibrating to the music. 

“We’re gods …” his voice haunted her as she stood in the corner, like a little mouse, scared of all that could be, and all that was. 

She was alone for a while, watching on as people laughed, kissed, danced and sprinted hand in hand as if they were Romeo and Juliet running off to a hiding place. 

“Mallory … aren’t you going to go dance? Everyone else is having fun,” Ms Mead asked … Ms Venables right-hand man. Mallory liked her strangely enough, she seemed nice in an odd way, a little strict but not without reason. 

Mallory smiled down at her, fidgeting with her dress, “I don’t know, I’m not much of a dancer, I don’t mind watching anyway.” 

Vibrant blue eyes gleamed up at her, red lips thin and in a tight smile, “you sure? You look like you’re about to burst into tears standing here all alone. You gotta include yourself more, get your head out of the clouds.” Ms Mead joked, grabbing a shining apple from the bowl behind her, “trust me, down here is more fun.” She said before taking a large bite out of the apple, a crunch so alluring Mallory had to look away. 

Perfect timing too, for she met eyes with him … The devil’s son. The dark angel. Across the room, hair down and flashing under the light of candles. Eyes so intense under the black mask, she couldn’t peer away like she wanted to. 

“I should kill you …” 

Mallory tore her eyes away, like the ripping of a dress, so stern and strong, only to be pulled apart thread by thread, she could feel the tension in the air, his gaze still on her and she was suffocating under it. 

“Excuse me.” She muttered time and time again as she squeezed through groups of people cluttered around the large hall, she had to get out, she had to get fresh air. 

“I would like to thank all who have attended adorned in such stunning attire … Really, it’s a pleasure to see you all enjoying this festive time of the year, the door to the afterlife being opened and all hidden desires with it. This masquerade ball may seem to be just that, a ball for the mysterious and seductive, but it means so much more than that.

“I wanted to celebrate the immense progress this school has made in the past year, you see, my Father inherited this estate to me after he passed a few years ago, at first I didn’t want it. What would I do with a boarding school?” 

Mallory stopped to face him. To watch as he spoke so loud and clear, his lips the shape of a rose, a false smile and beauty he was, thorns hidden beneath it all. All who looked upon him were entranced by his unnatural allure. 

“As a young boy, I never had the chance to see my potential, to fulfill it and be the best version of myself. I believe all children, all of you deserve the chance to become your most powerful self. This school is a vessel for all to become that-”

She was staring into the face of evil, and evil was staring back at her. Mallory didn’t hear what he was saying, didn’t hear the laughing and cheering of students around her, didn’t hear the wind outside howling in triumph. 

She just saw him … 

Until he was gone and away from the stage shrouded in bloody curtains. She caught back her breath, looking down at the floor to collect herself. She couldn’t handle it, the sight of him kept her from seeing the truth, she wanted so much to see just a son of evil, but she saw just a man. A man who knew her better than anyone ever had … It frightened her. 

She had to get out. 

There was only one place in her mind that she could feel safe. 

The gardens.

But it seemed Michael had known that’s where she would end up that night, for he was standing there in his dark suit, alone and lingering in the darkness where he was most powerful. 

Mallory had no response to his constant presence, his constant haunting. She didn’t say a word, only watched as he peeled away his black mask and looked her up and down like a serpent. “White is very becoming of you, Mallory.” 

She felt gross in the way he said it, as if he thought she was all innocence and naivety, as if he liked that about her. “What do you want? Can’t you just leave me alone.” She lashed out, surprising herself but hiding it well, marching past him and to the tree she  
would sit by during the day. 

“You know that isn’t possible … as long as you’re here and alive, you’re a threat-”

“A threat to what? I don’t understand … why can’t you get through your head that I don’t fucking know what’s going on!” Again, the anger was arising in her and she hated the touch of it, but she needed it out of her. 

He only smiled that seductive smile, impressed maybe or just enjoying her suffering. “The nightmares, the heat, the feeling of never being alone, the riddles you play … Why can’t you just come out and tell me what’s going on?” 

“I think you know, Mallory … You’re just denying it,’ he said, his destructive nature burning away any distance between them, closing in on her, towering and beautiful, “like I said, you’re afraid. They sent the wrong one to stop me.” His fingers slithering along her jaw, supporting her chin so it sat a little higher than usual. 

They …. 

He smirked, blue eyes saying more sense than his voice ever could, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth … You’re the bastard offspring of both Mallory, nothing but a pawn in a game of chess.” 

Mallory knew she was crying, she just didn’t know why, like his dagger was attacking a part of her she didn’t know was there, numb to her senses, but reactive nonetheless. 

“Then what are you? Aren’t you just a pawn as well?” She choked, ripping his hand away from her face. He flinched of course, and it empowered her. “He’s just using you, to create the world in his vision … he doesn’t care if you live or die to see it.” 

She stared him down, anger and sadness her courage and armor. 

“I found the girl in the forest too … you’re not righteous in any way, you’re a coward. You think your hands aren’t dirty, but they are. You’re a monster, and I can’t believe I thought you could ever help me.” 

For the first time since Mallory had seen him, he was left speechless and unnerved. Blue eyes wide and broken, hands clenched into fists and heart pounding not just in his own chest, but hers. She could feel him just like she felt everyone else. 

Just as she began to walk away, his hand strangled her wrist in his grip, “You think you’re doing yourself a favor but you’re not. You’ve just made yourself my enemy … You think your life is hard now …” 

He didn’t need to finish his sentence because she knew what he was saying before the words could come out, and she was afraid. But fear made a powerful ally. 

“You think I’m your enemy?” Mallory seethed between her teeth, “then I’ll become your enemy.” 

He let her go like she really was the plague, body disheveled and for once not adaptable to the circumstances of their interaction, for once she had done what he’s been doing to her. She made him lost and afraid.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time to delve into the mind of the antichrist himself! I hope I did him justice! :D 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the support, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

You think I’m your enemy? 

No, he never actually saw her as an enemy, he only ever saw her as a girl that didn’t know what she was or why she was here. Even when he learned the truth of her nature, she was still the poor little Mallory he had pity for. A younger him, a child lost and abandoned. 

Yet there was the unavoidable fear, the fear he felt shame in as he sat in his office thinking numbly of her threat. The disgust for himself as he was placed back in the past, experiencing the hollowed-out sentiment of fear and sadness. Of never finding that one break, that one good thing … He hated himself for thinking she could have been the one good thing for him on this earth before he destroyed it. Now she would have to be destroyed with it. 

So much potential … but no, he couldn’t risk keeping her here in the Sanctuary, her pureness and heavenly purpose could kick in at any moment, and he didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to wait and find out what she could do to him. 

Dear Mallory, he’d make sure to watch her suffer, and he’d imagine her to be everything that had made him the way he was to this day … She’d be his Mother, Constance, Tate, Ben … all of them, they all turned their backs on him but he wouldn’t turn his back on them, no he’d watch. 

He’d watch Mallory die and imagine it to be all of them. 

“Mr Langdon …”

Michael breathed in delightfully, dreaming it was the smell of little Mallory’s blood on his hands, “Ms Venable, to what do I owe the pleasure?” 

She was nervous, relying on her walking stick to remain tall and strong … she amused him greatly, that’s why he chose her as the leader of the Sanctuary, his father offered her soul as a gift alongside the school, “on behalf of … the Co-operative,” she said, clearing her throat forcefully, “I’d like to suggest another sacrifice, a thank you to you and your   
Father for all that you’ve done for us. Ms Mead has listed willing candidates, but-”

“-I prefer the ones unwilling, it makes it much more exciting don’t you think?” he said satisfied with how well she knew him, lazily discharging himself from the chair, finding his way to her side, arms crossed behind his back, “I sense you feel the same way …” 

Soft lips didn’t smile, but her eyes did, he was familiar with the look … They were all savages deep down, some more than others. “More than you could possibly imagine Mr Langdon. When shall the ritual begin?” 

“Tonight … normal time, the basement like usual. I say three tonight, for it’s a special occasion, these souls will not be gifts for me or my Father, but for you, let this be a thank you for all your hard work. I want to show my gratitude Ms Venable,” Michael evoked a sadistic smile on her face, but he was desperate to wipe it off later, when she finds out one of those souls is her dear Coco. He’d hand her the knife and see who she was loyal to, see if she was as cruel as she liked to think she was. 

Yet he wouldn’t admit to himself it was mostly to hurt Mallory, she was connected to Coco, had welded herself to the spoilt brat for a reason he didn’t understand or care to know. 

All he needed to know was the substantial pain it would bring her. 

~

“No, no, no! Please, please please-” The sobs were interrupted by the collision of a knife and flesh, a grunt and cough of blood, spurting from the wound and his mouth, rose red and drowning the boy’s lungs. Michael surveyed the scene before him, numb and apathetic to the dying boy, and screams suppressed by a gag in the mouth of the Coco girl, he saved her for last. He enjoyed the panicked glances between Venable and her, the thoughts going through her head fed him full. 

He would never be as nourished as he was now. 

The boy hadn’t made a noise when one of his many followers tore out his heart and shared the taste of it around the circle surrounding the table. Candlelight doing well to unveil the gore and liquids coming out of the bodies, beautiful … To see the insides, to see their fears and their desires, to see hope disperse like a flame under water. 

“Ms Venable, would you be so kind to do the honours of commencing our last sacrifice for the night?” He couldn’t keep the grin from his lips, it gave him life to see the tears struggling to not fall down the stone façade of Venable. 

Coco shouted, choked and repeated. 

“I-I don’t believe I deserve such an honour, in fact, I believe the sacrifices have been quite adequate for the night … I need no more of your gratitude Mr Langdon-”

“Come Ms Venable … You’ve done so much, this is the least I could do, besides, my Father would be so pleased with another soul, especially by your hands … My Father demands great sacrifice from all his followers after all.” 

She knew very well what he meant … To sacrifice the one person she genuinely cared for, a strange relationship he had first thought, but an interesting one. He had wanted to dissect it further, until he discovered the only way would be to kill one of them and watch as the one left behind suffered. Only then would he know how much Coco meant to her… 

“Of course … As you wish.” She was angry, and he loved every single bit of that rage inside her, that hate. 

The Vanderbilt girl was falling apart right before his eyes, mascara seeping into her skin, red lipstick smudged from the cloth in her mouth that he watched Venable take and put on the ground ever so gently. 

Fighting, kicking and punching, she was a fighter, he’d give her that, perhaps why Venable liked her so much. 

“You fuckers! You won’t get away with this, people will know I’m missing!” 

He laughed, Venable held a gaze on the girl, a gaze filled with guilt, sadness and early grief. Venable loved the entitlement of her, loved the snarky nature, and now she was going to have to snuff it all out with her own hands. 

On the table, limbs binded and not strong enough to escape. Blouse ripped from collar bones to just above her breasts, Venable’s eyes steered by that part of Vanderbilt longer than expected. 

“I can’t do it …” Venable whispered, glaring into Michael’s eyes like the world would end right then and there, “I can’t.” 

“I think you’re forgetting who gave you this position … I think you’re forgetting that you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my father. Who’re you loyal to?” 

The guests with blood on their hands and in their mouths were questioning the words between him and Venable, but they also knew they wouldn’t receive answers, remaining silent but curious. 

Venable’s lips thinned, she knew it was true, but her attention was taken by Vanderbilt, “please... don’t do this, don’t do this, this isn’t you.” 

This wasn’t going anywhere, his patience had run out and with a flick of his hand, Coco’s head snapped to the side and any previous sound died out quicker than Venables heart. 

“Coco …” she sobbed, falling into the table, gathering stains of blood on her formal attire, hands cupping the lifeless face of the girl as if she were the only thing keeping her alive. 

“Consider this your first warning.” He said, not only to Venable but to Mallory even though she hadn’t heard or seen a thing. Mallory would have felt Coco’s death as if it were her own, and it made him glad … but a part of him hurt, a part of him felt disgusted … 

You’re a monster, she said.

What of it, he wanted to say back. 

~ 

Michael reclined into the uncomfortable chair, the only chair in the gardens that he had recently declared his own, stealing it away from little Miss Mallory. The only sanctuary she had. 

Revenge always felt so sweet, but for some reason it didn’t have a taste this time, instead it was empty and hollow as he watched golden leaves fall from the tree that she would sit under peacefully. 

He had taken her safe haven and someone dear to her … And he felt nothing. 

Michael had to force himself to relive the tiny yet impactful things she had done in the past week, the energy had changed, it was no longer just his domain. She’s been experimenting with her newfound self, her powers, he could feel it. Light and life was awakening in this hidden place creating by his Father … 

The tide was shifting, the balance was being played with. 

Multiple times she gone out to the clearing where she found the body of one of the students, trying to bring her back from the dead. His many eyes, the trees … the crows, the rotting out there brought back news of her failures and at times, successes. 

Dead plants, dead insects and small rodents. She was learning, and learning fast. He just hoped Coco would be the first and final warning. 

His fears were reborn alongside Coco however … 

Shocked, he watched on as Coco and Mallory walked by the gardens, straight out of the forest where Vanderbilt had been buried, little Mallory’s eyes on him the whole time. 

“Thank you for telling me what I was.” He heard her voice in his head, sweet and innocent even amongst the threat of her words. Michael’s throat tightened, he could barely breathe … he could barely comprehend why it wasn’t anger he felt, but an admiration, an awe of her. It was quickly triumphing any fear he had of her.

She had brought Coco back from not only the dead, but hell. 

Maybe they did pick the right one. He smiled, inhaling the air as if it were her blood drowning the sky. 

Finally, someone he could maim and not kill.

~

“I must say you’ve impressed me more than anything, you’ve learnt quickly.”

He couldn’t help but grin as she jumped up from her bed, doe eyes wide and afraid, “How’d did you get in here?” Mallory heaved, wandering around her room, she was alone, Coco somehow kept her inner party girl even after death, or perhaps she was fucking Venable somewhere. 

“A few spells and a strong mind is all you need to get into places you don’t belong, you would know wouldn’t you Mallory?” 

She turned to him sharply, eyes suddenly gathering a haze of guilt, “I did what I had to do … I told you, you think I’m your enemy, I’ll become your enemy-”

“-you haven’t actually done anything, all you did was bring back a spoilt little shit from the dead, there’s not much else you can do to stop me,” Michael said, showing his teeth in a crooked smile, “the more I think of what you can do, the more amused I am by God and his helpers.” 

Mallory stood frozen, and only then was Michael able to take in how vulnerable she really was in this mess of a room, but most importantly, most unavoidable to his eyes was her small body, barely hidden beneath the lack of clothes, he knew when to be sly and secretive, she didn’t notice the way he ate her up with his eyes. 

“Destroy the world? Recreate it till it’s exactly how you and your Father want it, how’s that going for you both? I don’t see much progress happening besides killing innocent people.” 

She had deserted the corner furthest from him, she had gained some courage it seemed, and walked right up to him, chin up and eyes holding the stare, he liked it more than he bargained to, “just because your eyes can’t see into the shadows, doesn’t mean there’s nothing occurring at all. And why should I tell you, little church mouse … It’d only fill your heart with defeat, and I’d rather watch your hope build until the very end.” 

That managed to take her aback, a sharp unstable inhale, nostrils flaring, she looked down at the ground where their toes were close to touching. 

“Why do you want to destroy the world?” She asked. 

Michael for some reason knew there was no point in lying to her, although her eyes weren’t strong enough to see into dark places, she had her heart which could somehow bring out the lightness in almost anything.

“Because the world nearly destroyed me, its hypocrisy and cruelty nearly destroyed everything I cared for. In fact, the world will destroy itself Mallory,” she looked up with an understanding he didn’t expect to see from her, “destruction is just a part of life, it’s impossible to stop, your God made sure of that, but there’s also a peace from chaos. Did you know that from death springs life eternal? It’s an ongoing cycle. People die, people are born. Winter and decay, spring and rebirth. The universe has a pattern, a rhythm that no one or anything can change.” 

He had to pause, too enamoured with her soft smile and liquid eyes, “then why do you do such horrible things? Why can’t you just leave that to the universe?” 

He couldn’t help but copy her expression, lingering the tip of his thumb beneath her eye, to catch a falling tear, “because I am the universe, I’m the death and the destruction, I am its vessel. That’s all I ever was, and what I’ll always be.” 

Her lips quivered, her hand reached out for his, gently touching his skin and the veins beneath the false layer of humanity. “I don’t hate you … Even if I was sent here to, I can’t.” 

“Then join me Mallory, help me rebuild a new world, I need someone like you by my side,” he almost…almost begged, grasping her hand to his chest, “we could make things the way we want them to be, nothing would hurt us, we’d be their gods-”

Something instinctual in her ripped away her hand, made her fall away from him and stare with a horror and dread he hated to see on her pretty face, “get out. Please just get out.” 

The echoes of a past much forgotten were reborn, the cries of Constance…Get out, I don’t want you. 

He was crying, he felt it. His soul and his body weeping like a coward, a little boy … Why must everything leave him, abandon him. 

He snarled, hating every bit of the way she looked at him, the guilt and anger, the sadness and the longing. He wasn’t the coward, she was.

“I’ve given you a kindness, I’ve given you a patience and mercy and you have wasted it away unwisely.” Michael moved closer to her, until she was backed into the wall, he clenched his fists until he knew he could control the desire to break her neck, “I’m going to be as clear as I know how to be, if you try anything, if you so much as get in my way one more time, I will kill you. If you meddle with things that aren’t yours, meddle in places that you don’t belong … I will strangle the very life out of you and leave your body to rot in the forest where not even God can save you.” 

Mallory was broken, a broken little angel, a whimper falling from her mouth, “I wasn’t trying to get in your way, I brought back Coco because she didn’t deserve what you did to her. I took away the memory of you snapping her neck, she doesn’t remember anything … Do what you want, just leave me the fuck alone.” 

Within seconds she pushed past him and out the door, leaving him to sulk, doused in a violence and shame of another thing he had managed to completely ruin over and over again. 

They were all right. He destroyed everything he touched or looked upon. It was what he did best … so he’d continue to do it till he withered away like a blood stained rose. 

“Ave satanas.” he smiled through the tears, igniting flames on poor little Mallory’s bed, a last warning to her. Just like her, he’s had enough of the games.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, again I kind of just spewed out words lol   
> I'm trying guys! I just hope everyone is enjoying this, it is a bit all over the place still but I'm starting to fall into a steady plot, also I think this chapter might shock some people or it won't but oh well haha   
> Thank you for reading!

Weeks had passed, the cold was finally here, the true cold of the transition between autumn and winter. Strangely enough, Michael hated the cold … he much preferred spring and summer, he adored the warmth and the beauty of it, maybe it was the touch of good left in him, or the joy of seeing it all wither away. Not that it matters, life goes on, even in the freezing winter. 

“Father … I need your strength … the sanctuary must be completed before the apocalypse, there’s only a matter of time before the bombs drop.”

No answer. 

Michael remained on the ground, the scent of his own blood flowing and leaking from the lesions in his arms. The pain was surreal, it became worse every time he had to talk with his Father. Candlelight kept him from losing sight, hair falling into his face like curtains, protecting him from the truth. 

“Please … I need your guidance Father,” he begged, the sound guttural and rough, “speak to me and I will do all that you ask of me, I’ll do anything in order to bring your vision to life.” 

Whispers, chants sung in Latin and drowned in a darkness sometimes he could barely understand. Father seemed to always be disappointed, never proud … his velvet voice a puzzle he’d always have to solve.

Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Kill the goodness, you’re too weak, get rid of it. Sacrifice the one thing your heart yearns for. 

Kill the one who has your heart.

Michael opened his eyes, the hissing of snakes and boiling of blood long gone. His wounds healed and head free of the claws of Satan. “Kill the one who has my heart…” he spoke to himself, fingernails digging away the tears slipping from his eyes, “I don’t understand …” 

It haunted him, the words of his father. He didn’t understand. So he chose to ignore it.

He performed spells in his spare time, when he wasn’t sacrificing servants for hell and the future seed of humanity after the end, when he wasn’t giving hope to his followers, when he wasn’t watching Ms Mead so loyal to Venable with a jealousy and grief he knew too well, when he wasn’t planning how the sanctuary would function, who would survive and who wouldn’t. 

He performed spells on little Mallory. Mind tricks and games, he could feel her suffering, smell it. The perfume of despair and anger, he was poisoning her goodness, it was only a matter of time before she confronted him again and he yearned for it more than anything. He wanted to torture her, payback for the torture she had put him through, the false hope, the nights where he thought of nothing but her innocent eyes and holy light.

Nightmares, he poured them into her mind every night and he, a guest to her subconscious while she slept admired the sight of the terror. He visited her dreams at night. He followed her every time she tried to bring back the dead, the students in the forest, he’d watch her go to hell, walk the dimension of his Father until she was pulled back out again with bloody tears. She was strong but not strong enough. An angel. 

He’d never met a creature from heaven. She wasn’t anything special, they were supposed to be brave and fierce, a being not to be reckoned with. Father had gifted him visions of where she came from, a bastard offspring, born of humans but with the heart of an archangel. Father never spoke of heaven, his old home … Michael wondered if he would ever be capable to see it himself. Is it clouds, a kingdom in the sky made up of light and warmth? Or would he burn and fall to his death like Icarus? 

Michael sat in his office, drinking a glass of whiskey like a normal man, something he knew he wasn’t. His tongue savouring the honeyed sweet bitterness of it.

A knock on the door and he demanded who it was, he didn’t receive an answer, only the door opening and shutting just as quick. 

“Ah, Ms Venable,” he murmured into his glass of scotch.

“Did you know about the girl Mallory? She brought back Coco … that girl brought her back. Why haven’t you disclosed such information to us, this girl is a major threat to our very operation –”

“-quiet!” 

Normally plump lips had thinned and she breathed deeply, gulping down her bickering and anger wisely, Michael cracked his neck to the side, stretching after hours of sitting and drinking to crackling fire and students laughing downstairs. 

“I don’t have to tell you anything … And as far as I’m concerned, she is no threat, at least not to you, she did bring back your little toy after all,” he said sharply, pouring himself another glass.

“She’s not my toy …” Venable mumbled, fingers playing with her cane, holding a fiery gaze on him and the honey liquid in his hand. 

He laughed, taking a swift sip of his drink. “Whatever you say Ms Venable, I couldn’t really give a shit about who you fuck anyway, as long as you don’t put my plan at risk.” 

“Aren’t you afraid that our,” she pronounced “our” with an intensity he had been missing from her since the Coco incident, “plan has already been put at risk. That filthy girl knows more than she should, and for some reason she’s still alive. What would your Father think of that? Maybe you should try and keep it in your pants.” 

Mallory. She was a lot but she certainly wasn’t filthy. She was better than either of them could ever hope to be. He would never admit it, but it pissed him off to hear Venable call her that. 

“You really think you can get under my skin don’t you,” he began, his voice softer, quieter but not a whisper, he put his glass down and made his way to her, hands following the shape of her right arm to the crook between her shoulder and neck, “and in truth, what I do with what’s in my pants has nothing to do with you … but if you really want to know, it’s been nowhere near her…” His lips lingered by Venable’s ears, he felt her desire, her relief … It amused him greatly.

“See, you and me aren’t as similar as you like to think we are. I know how to control my impulses and crude urges. Unlike you, I can keep it in my pants.” 

Venable gasped, pulling away from him, “I beg your pardon?” 

He hummed, going back to his desk and finishing the last of the scotch, “My apologies, the whiskey must be getting to my head. Perhaps it’d be best if you left me the fuck alone. I have no time for you at the moment, go to your Vanderbilt girl and think about how she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that ‘filthy’ girl.” 

He watched with a numbness as she snickered, a strange look about her, a knowing smile and it stunned him a little, “It’s funny, I always thought we were the same. Had the strength to do the things no one else could, but it seems I was wrong. You are weak, you haven’t got the balls to do what needs to be done.” 

He waited till she left, waited and kept the rage in him as best he could.

The glass flew across the room to where Venable had been just a second ago prior to slamming the door on her way out. It shattered into little tiny pieces and he groaned, thinking about how he would have to clean it up. 

His eyes were heavy, his mind was clouded by his own stupidity and intoxication, no wonder his father never talked to him … He was a disappointment, fucked everything up. 

He didn’t have the strength to kill whatever it was keeping that little bit of light in him, he was still too human. 

Papers, books, his laptop and unlit candles were flayed onto the floor … nothing left on his desk or in the shelves. He fell to the floor and shouted into the back of his hand, muffled enough that nothing outside of his room would hear it, but loud enough that he heard it and the weakness threaded through it. 

The damage was done and he was sobbing, hands ripping into his hair … 

“Why am I so weak?” 

Flickering images of his mother, his real father that he took after so much, a killer … Images of the house, his grandmother, Ben. The first hearts he had broken. Then he saw Mallory. 

She was just doing what she could … Just like him. 

Something in him was jealous of her however, why couldn’t he be like her? Innately good? Why couldn’t he just be something, not have to try so hard and fail so painfully? 

But neither of them asked to exist? Asked to be what they were, yet he had treated her so badly? He could still feel her suffering and sadness … 

The fact that she had to sleep on cold floor because he burnt her bed, the fact she never could escape through sleep, couldn’t help those around her, couldn’t stop the darkness. 

God was cruel. 

He was cruel.

Michael fell asleep feeling an empathy so powerful it created a hope and salvation for him, even just for a second. Even just for a night.

He dreamt of Mallory, just her face, just her in the gardens chewing on an apple and happy, looking at him with amazement and a yearning for guidance, she had once looked at him with care, with admiration without really knowing him at all. 

He needed to see her. He needed her even if it meant she would yell at him to leave her alone again. 

~

They met in the gardens, on her free day off. He doesn’t know what made her say yes, what encouraged her to meet with him after everything. He had never felt anything like it when he saw her in a sweater too big for her and boots that didn’t fit properly, a wool beanie on her head. 

Feet crunching into the snow she walked to the tree where he sat, leather gloves clasped together and hair snuggling into his neck to keep warm. 

It was silent as she sat down beside him, every breath turning to ice as it left her mouth, innocent eyes trying to steer clear of his face.

“I forgive you … you know that right? We’re just doing what we’re meant to, we can’t help it. I’m just trying to exist,” her voice so deep and coarse, he never knew how much he loved the sound of it. He cleared his throat, struggling to find words.

“Forgiveness. I don’t think anyone has ever forgiven me.”

She turned to face him, a look of shock that suddenly contorted to amusement, “I mean, I can’t say that’s too surprising. You are the antichrist,” she laughed, a nervous laugh but still a laugh. He made sure to remember it, hide it away in his head to keep forever. 

“Antichrist … It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me that, usually people just say spawn of satan,” he said, eyeing her carefully as she smiled a tiny smile. 

“I’ll call you Langdon if you quit giving me the bad dreams,” she suggested, finally twisting her body so that she was facing him … Something in her had changed, he knew she had been learning fast, learning about her abilities, who she was and why she was here. It had given her a confidence. She wasn’t afraid of him. 

“How about you call me Michael and I’ll throw in a new bed with it.” 

They both laughed. It was strange. But also natural, after weeks of not seeing each other, but feeling each other, they had managed to overcome the absolute anger for one another. Evil and god wasn’t as black and white anymore. 

“I’ve been trying to work out my purpose … I’ve been praying to so many deities it’s not funny, and I haven’t gotten an answer yet. Sometimes I feel like maybe none of this real. Even when I go into that forest and end up waking up in this other world … Feeling this energy in me. I see the life in everything now. But also pain, there's something I have to do, but I don't know if I can do it.” 

Michael listened, it sounded like he was speaking into a mirror, or his reflection was speaking back to him. 

“How did you figure it out? How did you work out you were here to end the world and create a new one?” 

He smiled without meaning to, finding her seriousness so enlightening, “I had a little bit of help with that. I had guidance from many people I loved, but I also lost a lot of people I loved … I think that’s how I learnt about my destructive nature.” He watched as Mallory twirled a naked finger in the snow beneath them, playing with the white crystals. 

“Your family?” Her hazel eyes peered up into his, and he felt his throat constrict. 

“Yes, my family. My stepfather tried to help me and I threw it back in his face, my grandmother committed suicide because of me and my birth mother tried to kill me.” 

Mallory’s lips twitched, and she looked down trying to work out what to say, he could sense the energy so confused and shocked by his bluntness. 

“Who needs enemies when you have family,” she attempted to joke and immediately he felt she regretted it, he laughed nonetheless, finding the sadistic humour of it attuned to him and his version of funny. The truth hurts he thought sadly but with the right amount of self-awareness.

“What about your family?” He never once let his gaze fall away from her face, it was the only thing he wanted to see.

“I guess it was normal. I’m an only child, my parents are … good parents. But the more I think about it, the longer I’m here, sometimes I wonder … I think they knew there was something wrong with me. They sensed I was different, I think I scared them, still, I can’t help but miss them. They made me feel loved no matter what.” 

He felt her pain, he felt the sting of water in her eyes as if he were about to cry. He felt everything she felt. “I envy you Mallory, to have been loved just as to be feared. But … I think we all fear the people we love. We fear losing them, we fear rejection, we fear them falling out of love with us, we fear that we’ll hurt them.”

Again, her heart was pulling out the goodness in him, clearing away the darkness that had it held hostage, yet he couldn’t resist, he didn’t want to. There was a peace to just be like this, to sit down with someone who understood. 

“I guess you’re right. Sometimes though, I feel like I love something I don’t know exists. There’s something that I miss even without remembering it. God, it sounds so stupid -”

“It’s not stupid. Don’t ever say that.” Michael reached out for her, an instinct in him, his hand gently turning her to him, glove caressing the side of her face, her beautiful face. She was so beautiful … 

Tears were hovering before her brown eyes, too afraid to leave and fall down her perfect cheeks. Her eyes that stared at his lips, he felt her gaze on his mouth and he trembled. 

Please. Please. Please give in. 

And she did, it was innocent, unexperienced as if she had never kissed someone before and perhaps she hadn’t and he cherished her all the more for it. 

Her pink lips were smooth, compassionate, they evoked her very soul onto his own tainted lips. They barely touched him however, and he couldn’t help but grasp for more. He leaned in, pulled her closer and placed his mouth on hers just as gentle, but with poise and grace she didn’t have. He flicked his tongue out, hoping she would learn and follow his movements. 

She did and he smiled into her face, his nose fitting perfectly beside her smaller one. The feel of her … It was too much, too sweet and kind. He couldn’t control himself, Venable was right, but he couldn’t be mad. The truth had never felt so good. 

He was in heaven … 

And then all he felt was pain. 

She sobbed, she sobbed and chanted sorry over and over. He felt the life draining from him, the hope fading away, the smell of blood and the emptiness in his chest. He fell into the snow, staring with terror at his heart in her hands. 

She had stolen his heart. 

“Mallory?” he whimpered, choking, and she cried out. 

“I’m so sorry … I can’t let you – I can’t let you destroy the world, this was the only way…” his heart … she had teared it out, and he felt his powers weaken as a fire ignited, the organ burst into flames and she sobbed. 

Betrayal. 

He died, he knew he had died when he awoke in hell. She had killed him, he would come back, he always did and he knew intimately that fact. 

But she had killed him … She had tricked him, a creature so innocent and perfect as her, she did have darkness.

What hurt most was he knew she would continue to trick him over and over again. He was too weak to hate her. 

"Kill the one who has your heart." 

His Father had warned him, Venable had warned him. He was just too weak to understand.


End file.
